Ethics training at Bridgeport City Hall - finally

Brian Lockhart

Published 11:39 pm, Sunday, January 6, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- The city will require annual ethics training within City Hall -- a decade after Mayor Joseph P. Ganim's conviction on federal corruption charges had officials pledging to raise the standards for Bridgeport's conduct of business.

"It certainly is about time there was standardized annual ethics training for all city employees," said Jeff Kohut, a Democrat and one-time mayoral candidate who served on the city's Ethics Commission from 2005 to 2010.

But Kohut and others argue the ethics code and commission are so powerless as to render any training meaningless.

In fact, efforts to strengthen the commission post-Ganim have petered out. The mostly defunct five-member group was increased to seven members, with new appointees added to reassure skeptics someone was watching City Hall.

The City Council even went a step further, approving the hiring of a full-time ethics director. But that job was never filled and has been stripped from the books.

Two of the commissioner seats have been vacant for months, and the five remaining members' terms all expired two to three years ago, though they can legally continue serving.

"You could have 10 training sessions throughout the year, (but) if you don't have the mechanism to investigate ... whatever you teach people is not going to be enforceable," said ex-state Rep. Chris Caruso, who during his prior mayoral runs pledged to strengthen ethics in government.

The push for annual training is being spearheaded by Joseph Ianniello, Ethics Commission chairman and a rare Bridgeport Republican.

Ianniello recalled, as a director of engineering with Northrop Grumman, going through ethics training each year.

"Northrop Grumman at the time had 125,000 people. You think about doing business with the government -- all it takes is a breach of ethics and it could be a very serious impact on the company," Ianniello.

The same could be said of Connecticut's largest city, which has spent the past 10 years trying to scrub off the taint of the Ganim administration.

Ganim was convicted on 16 federal corruption charges for accepting kickbacks and bribes in exchange for awarding city contracts. He spent seven years in prison and was released in July 2010.

During the probe and after his conviction, city officials scrambled to bolster ethics policies to ensure Ganim was an aberration.

But while some instruction was scheduled under Ganim's successor, Mayor John Fabrizi, and current Mayor Bill Finch, Bridgeport has continued to lag behind the private sector and also state government in requiring annual sessions.

The state's ethics office is required to provide training to public employees every year, to new legislators upon their election and to the full General Assembly every four years.

Until now, only new city employees were briefed on the ethics code during orientation and signed a document that they received and understood it.

"I believe annual training is something that should be done," Ianniello said. "It's a modern thing."

Ianniello said his goal is to make the sessions worthwhile, but not time-consuming. Supervisors are to spend 20 to 25 minutes outlining ethics principals in the city code, answering questions and steering employees to city resources like how to file confidential complaints with the commission.

"If you want to sum it up, the purpose of ethics in government is to keep officials and employees from gaining financial benefit because of their position," Ianniello said.

Those managers will then provide the training to their staffs, until the information has trickled down through the ranks.

Eventually, Ianniello would like to have personnel tested following the sessions, not for punitive purposes, but to ensure the training sticks.

Some city officials have balked at taking time each year to go over the city's ethics code. When a newly elected Finch scheduled a $1,500 session for March 2008 with a consultant, then-Board of Education PresidentMaximino Medina Jr. said he did not need it.

"I learned everything I need to know about ethics from my mother and father," he said at the time.

Asked if such excuses will be allowed now, Ianniello said, the training is required.

Kohut and Caruso both complained that the city's Ethics Commission lacks teeth because it has no disciplinary authority.

And even the investigations cannot be done seriously, Kohut said, because the group has no budget and is staffed by a member of the city attorney's office.

"We had no resources, so we had to fumble our way through however we could, and it was always inadequate and always influenced by the city attorney's office, usually," Kohut said.

Caruso said the commission needs an independent legal adviser.

"Nothing against the city attorneys, but there's an inherent conflict that exists," Caruso said.

Since 2008, Ianniello said the commission has fielded nine complaints, but there have never been findings of probable cause.

He believes the commission works well with the city attorney.

Asked if the group should be allowed to discipline employees and public officials, Ianniello said no.

"You've got union contracts and everything to worry about in some places. And something happens in the Police Department they do their own review," he said. "I'm not sure the Ethics Commission in a city as big as Bridgeport could really take that on. We're not a bunch of experts or anything like that in the field. We're not lawyers."

Kohut said it is up to the mayor to fill the vacancies on the commission.

Finch's office said it is working to appoint two new members and reappoint current ones.